Me researching family in Roanoke, VA.
Bridging the Ancestral paper trail forward to the year 2012, all efforts were exhausted on mom and Susan’s biological father, Bill. Camm was his surname and Susan and I tossed that name backwards, forwards, and inside out. We collected death records, birth records, and land deeds. We took pictures of gravestones and reached out to any potential relatives…though something never quite fit. It shouldn’t be this hard I remember thinking. After all, I had researched my mother’s maternal line back to Isabella of France. I am sure Susan was rolling her eyes at the other end of our phone conversations. All the while, she maintained she knew something wasn’t quite right. I was forcing a piece of the puzzle that looks ALMOST like the shape, but even if I squint my eyes, it just won’t conform.
As we seesawed about the possible plots of Bill’s paternal line, we often jumped off into his maternal roots. There we were deeply satisfied with all the black sheep stories of our Appalachian Mountain heritage. Miscreants of the South… Susan and I have always loved the dark side of Genealogy–minus the pedigree collapse. This is where we dive into bootleggers, houses of ill repute, and fermented kin. The Rebel Queen, Isabella of France, is on my X chromosome and “Florentine Clementine”, my third great grandmother on Bill’s side, was a bona fide courtesan! My cup runneth over with interesting women.
Later in 2012, I caught wind of a DNA study via 23andme. They were offering free kits in an effort to isolate and study the Parkinson’s gene. I didn’t know much about DNA at the time, or what it had to offer, but I decided to throw my mom’s name into the hat, nonetheless. Since my mom had gotten the disease early I thought she might be a good candidate. 23andme agreed and off went the kit. It felt like months as we waited for the results. To kill the angst I researched what we might gain from this study. Yes, we will see if she has the Parkinson’s gene but it wasn’t our main interest. I was mainly looking to attach evidence to our paper trail….in hopes of making the Camm piece fit.
I remember the day the results came in. It felt very clandestine with the “unlock here for this result” and a second and third pop up basically telling me I couldn’t un-see said result. I was beginning to think I was going to need to chant something to get through. Finally, the first thing I see is that my mom DOES have the Parkinson’s gene and they are extremely interested in her for further research. I decide I am not shocked by this result and scroll down to her genetic admixture: 99.1% European. I click on the map icon and individual countries come up with a breakdown of percentages: 10.3% Scandinavian, 5.5% German /French, 52% British/ Irish and the rest is a mixture of Jewish, African American, and Sardinian. I stared blankly at the screen. I thought I was going to get all the answers in this one sitting. Words like haplogroup, allele, centimorgans, and autosomal start clanging around in what felt like my tin head. Turns out I didn’t know how DNA worked and I wasn’t at all sure I would ever be able to figure it out.
After the admixture results were the cousin matches. The list was high in number, at least 800. I scrolled through surnames people had built into their bios. I narrowed them down via the search engine. No Camm. Not one. My squint eased and I mentally put Camm on the backburner…for the time being. This was a whole other avenue that I was going to have to try to navigate, but I was determined not to give up.
In the coming years, I Googled until I could Google no more. I learned the genetic terms I needed, read books on genetic genealogy, joined DNA groups, and volunteered to help others find their families through DNA Detectives. I started indexing for Family Search.org and even started looking for people’s relatives that had passed, alone, and homeless. I have overtaken a great many conversations with DNA rhetoric and made a handful of you spit into a tube like a mad scientist. It is my passion now; I hope you’ll forgive me.
Since 2012, Susan, her daughters, myself, and my son have all taken DNA tests. We have uploaded and downloaded, graphed, charted, and just plain exhausted ourselves in finding Bill’s paternal line. It wasn’t until Susan and I did a test through Ancestry.com that we got a close hit we didn’t recognize. Byrd. Expected relationship to Susan was anywhere from half first cousin once removed to second cousin. And so it began, Byrds in my Belfry.
Definition: Bird irruption- A sudden surge of birds.
Byrds in my Belfry 